1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an image reading and recording apparatus integrally provided with an image reading portion for reading the image of a document, and an image recording portion for recording an image on a sheet, and particularly to an image reading and recording apparatus in which a portion of a document transporting path for transporting the document to the image reading portion and a portion of a sheet transporting path for transporting the sheet to the image recording portion are made into a common transporting path.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has heretofore been an image reading and recording apparatus integrally provided with an image reading portion for reading the image of a document and an image recording portion for recording (forming) an image on a sheet which is a recording medium (for example, described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,391,009).
Such an image reading and recording apparatus, as shown, for example, in FIG. 15 of the accompanying drawings, is provided with a scanning station 122 which is an image reading portion for reading the image of a document, a printing station 124 which is a recording portion for recording an image on a sheet, an automatic sheet feeder (ASF) 126 for transporting the sheet to the printing station 124, and an automatic document feeder (ADF) 128 for transporting the document to the scanning station 122.
Also, in this image reading and recording apparatus, a portion of a sheet transporting path and a portion of a document transporting path are made common to each other, and a pickup roller 132 provided on the lower ends of the feeders 126 and 128 is made available for common use. Design is made such that documents stacked on the ADF 128 and sheets stacked on the ASF 126 are picked up by this pickup roller 132 for common use, whereby the downsizing of the apparatus and a reduction in cost are achieved.
Now, in such a conventional image reading and recording apparatus, the ADF 128 is disposed on the ASF 126 in order to make the pickup by the pickup roller 132 good, and make access simpler for the accurate and appropriate loading between two adjustable guides (not shown).
If the ADF 128 is thus disposed on the ASF 126, even if the sheets are set on the ASF 126, when the documents are set on the ADF 128, the documents are picked up always earlier than the sheets. Therefore, when the copying of a plurality of documents set on the ADF 128 is to be effected, the documents are first successively transported to the scanning station 122, whereafter the sheets are transported to the printing station 124.
However, when design is thus made such that the documents are first successively transported to the scanning station 122, whereafter the sheets are transported to the printing station 124, document image data of all pages must be accumulated in memories and therefore, the number of image memories is increased and along therewith, costs are increased.
Also, in the conventional image reading and recording apparatus, it is more difficult to pick up the documents in the ADF 128 which have bent portions of various sizes than to pick up the sheets in the ASF 126 and therefore, the pickup roller 132 is disposed at the widthwise center of the documents so as to be capable of reliably pick up the documents.
However, when the pickup roller 132 is thus disposed at the widthwise center of the documents, there occurs a case where the position of the pickup roller 132 is not disposed at the widthwise center of the sheets, and in such case, there is the possibility of the skew feeding of the sheets occurring during transport. When the ASF 126 is disposed on the ADF 128, conversely there is the possibility of the skew feeding of the documents occurring.